Includes bibliographical references (pages 244-266) and index

Foreword -- Part 1: Druids -- 1: Druids' name -- 2: Druidic hierarchy -- 3: Druids and society -- Part 2: Beginning Times -- 4: Where did druidism come from? -- 5: Gods and men -- 6: God above the Gods -- 7: Physician and the sun -- 8: Warrior deity -- 9: Father of all -- 10: Three-faced goddess -- 11: In the depths of the sanctuary -- Part 3: Initiations And Rituals -- 12: Druidic sanctuary -- 13: Mistletoe and plant ritual -- 14: Four elements -- 15: Sacrifices -- 16: Festivals and holidays -- 17: Power of the word -- 18: Totemism and shamanism -- 19: Neodruidism -- Part 4: Druidic Thought -- 20: False polytheism -- 21: Druidic monism -- 22: Mind and matter -- 23: Otherworld -- 24: Quest -- Conclusion -- Notes -- Index

From the Publisher: A comprehensive and revealing look at the druids and their fundamental role in Celtic society that dispels many of the misconceptions about these important religious figures and their doctrine. Written by the world's leading authority on Celtic culture. Druidism was one of the greatest and most exalting adventures of the human spirit, attempting to reconcile the unreconcilable, the individual and the collective, creator and created, good and evil, day and night, past and future, and life and death. Because of the oral nature of Celtic civilization our understanding of its spiritual truths and rituals is necessarily incomplete. Yet evidence exists that can provide the modern reader with a better understanding of the doctrine that took druidic apprentices 20 years to learn in the remote forests of the British Isles and Gaul. Using the descriptions of the druids and their beliefs provided by the historians and chroniclers of classic antiquity, as well as those recorded by the insular Celts themselves when compelled, under Christianity's influence, to utilize writing to preserve their ancestral traditions. Jean Markale painstakingly pieces together all that is known for certain about them. The druids were more than simply the priests of the Celtic people; their influence extended to all aspects of Celtic life. The Druids covers everything concerning the Celtic religious domain, intellectual speculations, cultural or magical practices, various beliefs, and the so-called profane sciences that have come down from the Celtic priesthood

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